Contesting the boundaries of marianismo and entrepreneurial identity: meanings of motherhood amongst Latin American migrant women entrepreneurs

Abstract

PurposeTo critically analyse how Latin American migrant women entrepreneurs living in Ireland and the UK negotiate their entrepreneurial and motherhood identities in transnational settings. The paper explores (1) how motherhood influences the choices of becoming entrepreneurs; (2) how women reconcile the social imaginaries of motherhood from their country of origin in the new contexts of settlement; and (3) the impact of these transformations on their businesses.Design/methodology/approachThis paper draws on six biographical case studies (three in Ireland and three in the UK) and employs the theoretical lens of translocational positionality to analyse entrepreneurship as context-specific and relational processes that bring together a multiplicity of social and geographical locales.FindingsLatin American women entrepreneurs navigate their roles as “good mothers” and “good businesswomen” by simultaneously (1) complying with core values of marianismo that confine them to traditional gender roles and (2) renegotiating these values in ways that empower them through entrepreneurship. Finally, juxtaposing these two contexts (Ireland and the UK), this study (3) illuminates the similarities of the ever-continuing gender power struggles of egalitarianism for Latin American migrant women in both contexts.Originality/valueDespite the agreed need for exploring motherhood as one of the critical aspects shaping family and business cycles, this area needs to be sufficiently analysed in its intersection with ethnicity or migratory status, particularly with participants from the global South. This article aims at bridging that gap.